awful title. One thing was plain. It was their duty to maintain
the rights of the City. They therefore appointed a committee to consult
with counsel learned in the law, and prepare a defence such as they might
be advised to make, and ordered the Chamberlain to disburse such sums of
money as might be required for the purpose.(1488)

(M757)

More than a twelvemonth was taken up in preparing the long and technical
pleadings(1489) preliminary to trial, and in the meantime another severe
struggle took place in assertion of the right claimed by the citizens to
elect both their sheriffs. The citizens ranged themselves in separate
factions, the Whig party under sheriff Pilkington, the Tories under the
mayor. Each leader entertained his supporters at dinner.(1490) There was
to have been a banquet held on the 21st April at Haberdashers' Hall, at
which the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Shaftesbury and others of the Whig party
were to have been present, but the proposal getting wind, the mayor was
strictly enjoined by the Privy Council to prevent it as being a seditious
meeting and tending to create factions among the king's subjects.(1491)

(M758)

The Duke of York, who had for some time past resided in Scotland, had not
increased in favour with the citizens of London. It is true that the mayor
and aldermen of the city paid their respects to his highness (10 April,
1682) at St. James's Palace, on his return from the north, after paying a
similar visit to the king, who had recently returned to Whitehall from
Newmarket;(1492) but a proposal to offer an address to the duke praying
him to reside in London found but little response in the Court of
Aldermen, and was allowed to drop.(1493) It was not so long ago that his
picture hanging in the Guildhall was found to have been mutilated, an
offer of L500 for the discovery of the perpetrator of the outrage being
without effect.(1494) Just when Pilkington was about to lay down his
office of sheriff the duke entered an action against him for slander,
claiming damages to the extent of L50,000. For a time he managed to escape
service of the writ,(1495) but if he was not served before, his presence
in the Common Hall on Midsummer-day for the election of new sheriffs
afforded ample opportunity to serve him then.

(M759)

This election is one of the most remarkable elections in the City's
annals. The royalist mayor, Sir John Moore, having previously drunk to
Dudley North at a banquet at the Bridge